Joel ~ex presidente

Week 13: Lost Girl

Last week of session, aww. On the plus side, we’ll be back next session, yay! In this week’s screening, we’ll be continuing Lost Girl season two, which we started earlier in the session.

To repeat the blurb I gave last time: Bo is a succubus who grew up in an adoptive human family, unaware of her non-human nature and of the Fae world. Her succubus powers only become apparent to her when she accidentally killed her first love by draining him of his life energy, an act which forced her to flee her home. In the pilot episode, Bo saves a human girl named Kenzi; the two quickly become friends and Kenzi decides they should team up to create a Fae/Human detective agency. Confronted by the Fae elders with having to choose a side (“Light” or “Dark”), Bo declares herself neutral, deciding to side with humans.

5pm Friday in ChemSci M18.

Week 5: Sanctuary

Sanctuary follows the exploits of Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) and her quest to protect various cryptids, legends, and abnormal animals/people with certain extraordinary powers and abilities – what most people would consider monsters. “The Sanctuary” serves as a safe haven for these “Abnormals”. She is aided in her quest by her reluctant protégé Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne); former freelancer Kate Freelander (Agam Darshi); the talkative lycanthrope geek Henry Foss (Ryan Robbins), a computer and security expert; her taciturn, Homo heidelbergensis-like assistant, played by Christopher Heyerdahl (unnamed, but listed as Bigfoot in the show’s credits); and on-again-off-again villain John Druitt (Heyerdahl again), who was once known as Jack the Ripper.

In the previous season, by following clues left by Magnus’ father, our heroes discover Praxis, an advanced underground civilization of humans and Abnormals. After an initial period of mistrust (exacerbated by the antics of Adam Worth (Ian Tracey), an old enemy of Helen’s who inspired Jekyll and Hyde), Helen and her team save the world and reach an entente, with Magnus’ father acting as ambassador. However, the peace does not last long. Worth, who escaped, manipulated unhappy Abnormals in Praxis while experimenting with a dangerously unstable energy source to power a time machine. The end results of his machinations were the destruction of Praxis, several armies of displaced Abnormals marching on the upper world, and his escape to the past to attempt to save his daughter, with Magnus hot on his heels.

5pm Friday in ChemSci M18.

In other news, SpockSoc’s first movie outing is coming up this week. We’ll be going as a group to see The Hunger Games at the Randwick Ritz, the 6:30pm session on Wednesday. For those who haven’t been there before, the cinema is at 45 St. Pauls Street Randwick, not too far from Uni. We’ll meet up in the lobby beforehand – say, around six o’clock or so – and go in together, then m
nearby for dinner afterwards. Those who are Arc members and show their sticker can get tickets for $8 (or so I’ve been told – haven’t actually tried it myself) and as an added bonus, any SpockSoc members who show me their membership card and ticket stub can get $2 reimbursed. One of the perks of membership. =)

Week 1: Once Upon A Time

Welcome new members! Welcome back old members! It’s time to start a shiny new year at SpockSoc! This e-mail’s gonna be kinda lengthy, but I’ll try to keep it down for future ones. Honest. =)

To kick off the year, our first screening for this session is Once Upon A Time. The story is set in the fictional small town of Storybrooke, Maine. The town is populated by characters from fairy tales, who have been exiled to the real world due to a curse cast by the Evil Queen as part of a revenge plot against Snow White and Prince Charming. Because of the curse, most of the inhabitants of Storybrooke have no memory of their true identities and have been stuck timelessly in Storybrooke for years. It’s got Robert Carlyle. Woo!

Our screenings for this session will be in the Chemical Sciences building, theatre M18. The ChemSci building is at grid reference F10 on any campus map – it’s the tall stripy building halfway up the Main Runway from Anzac Parade, with the clock on the western side. M18 is just outside the main entrance, which is on the south side of the building, the side that faces away from the Runway.

Screenings start at 5pm on Fridays, and we’ll show as many episodes as we can fit into the night until we need to leave at 11pm – usually it’s about seven episodes. At about 7pm or so, we’ll start taking orders for pizza for dinner. Pizza costs $5 per half, and you get a can of drink thrown in for free. We’ll also take orders for other things like pasta or garlic bread – prices to be arranged based on the current market rate.

In other news, SpockSoc also has a Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/5002703134/
As a welcome-back present, we have five free double passes for The Raid to give out. Check out the group page for details.

Lastly, if you ever want off the mailing list, or if I’ve accidentally misspelt an address and gotten someone else by coincidence, the unsubscribe information appears at the bottom of every e-mail.

Hope to see you at the screening!

-Joel
el presidente

Week 12: Defying Gravity + AGM

This week: the long-awaited AGM! Woo hoo! The AGM is neccesary for the continued existence of SpockSoc next year, and it’s vital that we have at least fifteen members there, so please try to come, even if it’s just for the AGM. We’ll kick off the AGM itself at 7:30 on Friday, over dinner – send me an e-mail ahead of time if you want to order pizza and won’t be able to make it before 7:30. Pizza is $5 per half.

All exec positions are up for re-election. We’re all students, after all, and we’ll all have to graduate someday, so at some point we’ll certainly all need to be replaced. Please think seriously about whether you want to help keep SpockSoc running. You also get to hear fun things like the state of our finances, and read the club constitution.

So: AGM, 7:30pm Friday, Red Centre G001. Be there. If we don’t get the numbers, we’ll have to do it over during the summer break, and noone wants that, do they?

Also, we’ll be showing Defying Gravity, but seriously, the AGM is the main draw-card here, right? =) The series follows eight astronauts on a journey of exploration around the solar system. However, they’re not alone on the voyage, and not because there’s aliens hovering outside the window – they brought something with them. What’s inside the mysterious Pod 4? What’s waiting in store for them on their journey?

We showed the first half of the season way way back in the first few weeks of session one – I’d meant to show this much earlier, but I forgot to include it until I was reminded of it a few weeks ago. With that in mind, I’ll certainly open with a brief recap and character introduction. The screening starts at 5pm Friday, Red Centre G001.

Hope to see you there,
-Joel
el presidente

Week 8: Sanctuary

Hope you’re enjoying the Anzac Day long weekend. This week at SpockSoc we’re showing Sanctuary, the first half of season two. The series stars Amanda Tapping (Sam Carter in Stargate) as Doctor Helen Magnus, a woman who became immortal as a result of experiments with vampire blood. Now, she runs a sanctuary for all sorts of creatures who need her help – werewolves, lizard men, creepy worm-paratise things from Chernobyl. Et cetera.

I’ll attempt a brief recap of the events of season one before we start, so come along even if you weren’t at our screenings last year – it’s a great series. Starting at 5pm in Rex Vowels.

On a side note, for those who were at our Misfits screening last week but left immediately, the next season is being either filmed or broadcast (not sure which) in England in May so with any luck we’ll be showing it early next session. Watch this space.

Week 7: Misfits

Here we go, second half of the session.

This week at SpockSoc, we’re showing Misfits. It’s a British series about a bunch of people who discover they have superpowers. Kinda like Heroes, only instead of gaining their powers by looking at the sun during a solar eclipse, they get struck by lightning. And instead of being a random bunch of people from all over the planet, they’re juvenile delinquents. Also, it’s British. =)

Anyway, as per British series, the first season is short, only six episodes, so we’ll be able to fit the whole thing into the screening. Come along. =) Screening starts at 5pm in Rex Vowels theatre.

On a side note, if you missed Doctor Who on Sunday, or want to watch Doctor Who Confidential, the making-of special, remember you can catch both on ABC’s iView

Week 6: Better off Ted

I hope you enjoyed your mid-session break. This week’s screening is Better off Ted. It’s an extremely funny office-humour-type series with some sort of sci-fi elements.

Ted Crisp loves his job. He works for the team at Veridian Dynamics, where nothing is too far-fetched, or out of the ordinary. An average day for Ted could easily involve creating a suicidal turkey, for instance. The only problem is, Ted is ethical and the company is not.

It stars Jay Harrington and Portia de Rossi. We showed the first episode at a screening last year, and it was quite well-received by those there. We’re starting at 5pm in Rex Vowels like usual – pizza run at 7-ish. If you’re not sure whether you’ll like it, just come for at least the first episode – they’re only half an hour. =)

On a different note, the Lord of the Rings marathon went well on Saturday, but considering the number of interested people I spoke to at O-Week, the turnout was much smaller than I expected. Was mid-session break a bad time? Was there not enough advance warning. If I were to run it again, would you be interested and when would be a good time? Please email me using the contact form.

Mid-Session: LotR Marathon

On Saturday, by popular demand, we’ll be having a Lord of the Rings marathon. It’s going to be in Quad G026, which is pretty much midway on the route between Rex Vowels and Quad G032. I’ll hang the banner outside – if you go to Quad G032 and look to the right, you should be able to see it. It’s the bright orange one that says “SpockSoc”. Anyway, we’re starting at 9am on Saturday – the movies are long, so even though we’ve booked the room out for fourteen hours, it’s going to be squishy once meals are factored in, so I’d like to start close to 9am.

As usual for marathons, I’ve specifically booked a room with movable furniture, so we can shove everything out of the way and lie on the floor or whatever. So bring a cushion, beanbag, mattress, couch, armchair… portable ball pit? Anything you want to lie, sit or otherwise make yourself comfortable on. We’ll sort out meals on the day – we’re pondering having one person get takeaway Chinese or similar for everyone, to streamline the process a bit.

Apologies for those who can’t make it – we took things into consideration, and decided that it was either this weekend, or we’d have to leave it until much later in the session, or even early next session. It’s something of a can’t-please-everyone situation.

Week 5: Dollhouse

As most of you are (most likely) aware, this weekend is the Easter weekend, and next week is the mid-session break. Some of you might be thinking we’ll be taking a break during the break – no way! In fact, we’ve got more screening time than normal. =D

This Friday (Good Friday) we’ll be showing Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse. We’ll most likely be starting with the (originally) unaired final episode of season one, and continuing with season two, as that’s where we left off at our previous Dollhouse screening last year. We’ll be in Rex Vowels starting from 5pm, pizza run at 7-ish. I’ll be away this weekend, so the screening will be run by Vice President James.

I’ll send another e-mail about next week’s stuff next week, but just in case you’re away and don’t read it (or I’m away and forget to send it =D ) I’ll give a brief summary now. During the break, we’ll be having an extra special extended screening on the Friday, showing Legend of the Seeker, based on The Sword of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind – we’ll be starting at 4pm in Rex Vowels.

Secondly, it’s our second marathon for this session! On Saturday the 10th, we’ll be showing the extended editions of all three Lord of the Rings movies. Woo! It’s in Quad G026 starting from 9am. I’ll give more details in my next e-mail, but keep your diaries free if you’re interested. =)

Week 10: Supernatural

This week at SpockSoc, we’re showing classic episodes of Supernatural. We’ll decide on the night which episodes we want to watch, but we’ll probably just start from the very start and see how things go from there. It’s in Goldstein G06 as usual, starting from 5pm. Pizza run during the night.

Also, remember: AGM next week. I’ll be bringing a home-made oreo cheesecake as incentive. =) It’ll be in the room during the screening – if you can’t make it to the whole screening, we’ll aim to have it around 7:30 or so, so you can just try to turn up then. Be there. =)